Zohran Mamdani
The company recently bought a six-story building at 281 Park Avenue South in Manhattan for $81.5 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, is leasing an entire 16-story office building at 330 Hudson Street in Manhattan. The expansion is much larger than Anthropic’s existing New York office at 155 Sixth Avenue. The new building will have space for around 1,700 desks. Anthropic had fewer than 500 employees in New York at the beginning of the year. The company expects to have more than 1,000 employees in the city by the end of the year.
The Airbnb purchase therefore stands out as a major bet on New York. New York City is facing warnings from some billionaires that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s progressive policies could push businesses, wealthy people and investment out of the city. But Airbnb is making a very different move. The property is expected to become a major hub for Airbnb’s New York-area employees. The deal comes even as some of the city’s richest residents and business leaders have warned about the impact of higher taxes, housing policies and other changes under Mamdani. Notably, Airbnb is not the only major company expanding in the city. It is also hiring for research, engineering, policy, sales and operations roles in New York.